Sunday, 11 March 2007

FULL CIRCLE

I came home yesterday after a couple of nights’ stay in the Royal Free, Hampstead, under observation for what turned out to be three small kidney stones – fortunately too small to require surgery. Even so, they were big enough to cause me several hours of excruciating agony until my GP gave me a pain-killing injection.

I was kept in overnight for further scans and tests, and was fascinated to find myself in the “George Qvist Ward”. This brought back vivid memories of the ‘near miss’ I had over thirty years ago, when my appendix burst just before Christmas and I was only saved by emergency major surgery performed by the very same George Qvist. George Qvist [pronounced “Kwist”], 1910-81, was a senior surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, and my operation in fact took place at the old hospital in Grays Inn Road because the new one in Hampstead was still under construction and Mr Qvist preferred to use his familiar theatre at the old site. So I was one of the last patients there, being in for six weeks because the operation had to be repeated when an abscess formed.

I have always counted Mr Qvist as the bestower of the remainder of my life since then, and it was curious to renew the link with him this week. As he has been dead for over quarter of a century, the young ward staff regarded me as somewhat of an antique when I told them about my personal contact with him.

Zola - thrice welcome! Thank goodness you're back. The Beadle and Wooffie [bearing brandy barrels] were just about to set out on a rescue mission to Lapland when your message arrived as your silence was beginning to seem like a case of Captain Scott all over again.....

Thanks, too, everyone else, for your kind messages and thoughts. They are a real help in speeding my climb back up out of what has been a dismaying and exhausting episode.

I hope to resume blogging over in the arena soon. Meanwhile, doubles on the house in the Snug for everyone.

No tea bags here, thank you very much! The burrow brew is 50% leaf Darjeeling and 50% leaf Keemun. I once knew someone who was vastly impressed because he had met the possessor of over 50 different brands of leaf tea, which he regarded as the height of sophistication!

I am convinced.trouble was that the rumour was going around that anti and ben were doing a re-make of Steptoe and Son(therefore the warning about teabags).It pays to be careful nowadays yer knows.Anyway - glad you are all back on form.get me cane out I will.

About Me

anticant is the blogname of a lifelong free speech and civil rights campaigner. A lot of his life since WW2 has been taken up with battling against cruel and over-bossy laws, censorship, censoriousness, and Nanny Knows Best types. Now elderly and in poor health, anticant hopes his memories and thoughts will be of interest to those engaged in today's struggles for freedom, democracy, and a more hopeful tomorrow.
e-mail: anticant@hotmail.co.uk